Salvation
by KJmom
Summary: One of us will be the salvation of the other.  Angsty one-shot from Draco's POV.  This is not slash and is not fluffy.


**A/N: Before you read this, I want you to know that this is purposely disjointed and rambling. There are run-on sentences and fragments aplenty. It's crazy, dark, and possibly even over the top. There is no romance, there is no love or fluff, there is nothing but desperation - single-minded, harrowing desperation. This is not my normal cuppa, so you've been warned. Oh, and I always forget this, but I do not own Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy, or any of the other eye candy of the Harry Potter World. The movies and books are fantastic works of brilliance that I wish I owned, but do not and profit in no way from this ficlet. Or maybe drabble is a better word for this?**

I watch you, always watching, _never_ touching. Not anymore, it's too much and I can't bear the thought of touching you, even in anger, it's too much. You laugh and I'm left wondering how you can find _any_ joy in the storm that's brewing around us. Merlin knows I haven't felt any in months.

Just two boys, each nothing more than a victim of circumstance, so alike and so _very_ different. Yes, just two boys, but we really aren't anymore, are we? I have killed, have taken innocent lives as if swatting a fly. You are carrying the weight of the world on your thin shoulders. We really are men now, men walking around in the bodies of boys. Men who've seen too much, felt too much, and _know_ too much.

Puppets, that's what we are. Puppets whose strings are being pulled too tight, too fast, too _far_ - always, _always_ in different directions. Predetermined destinies that will never allow us a moment of peace stretch us too thin, require too much. I wonder, has your soul been ripped yet? Mine has, all the sooner because of the master I serve. Yours will be as well, you just serve a kinder master, one who _strives _to keep you intact though the effort will be fruitless.

We have our missions, don't we? I am to kill your master, and you are to kill mine. Fighting battles and wars of other men drain us and we struggle to find the will to go on. How can any of this be right? Be _moral_? How can either side claim to hold the high ground when their oh-so-righteous voices die amidst the screams of the causalities? How can either of us be right when deathly green flows so readily from the tips of our wands?

I miss the days when our biggest fear was losing a quidditch match. The days when you were my enemy. You were good, I was bad, and the world was in balance. I knew my role, knew just how to sneer, just how to smirk. I _hated_ you, I didn't empathize with you. You felt the same and it was _perfect_. _We_ were perfect. Now? Now we're broken, used, empty. Too empty to assert ourselves, too used to pull away, too broken to carry on without constant direction.

I will do my master's bidding and you will do yours. And, if that puts us across from each other, wands pointed at chests, eyes locked, fear mounting between us? Who will die, Harry? Which one of us will speak the words to end it? Who will be so kind as to put the other out of their misery? That's what it would be, you know? Kindness, sympathy, a desire to finally, _finally_ allow some freedom, even if not your own. Would you do that for me? Set me free? Release me from the bonds that have chafed and scarred and left me nothing more than a hollow shell, could you that do? Or would you consider it an end too good for me?

I can't do it myself. It would be disgraceful. But to die in battle? At the hand of the Great Harry Potter? That is a death worthy of a Malfoy. That is a death of which even my stoic father could be proud.

Would your hero complex allow you to save me the _only_ way I can be saved? Would you let yourself whisper those deadly words? Could you muster the loathing that would be required for your attempt to be successful? I could only allow you a moment to do so, I would either die straight away, or be forced to fight back. Don't hesitate, _please._

When the time comes, if we pass each other on our fatal missions, stop for me, Harry. _Please _stop for me. Cut my strings, set me free. If not, I will do it for you. Either way, one of us will be the salvation of the other.

**A/N: I'm working on the next chapters of Scars, and Living Again. The next chapter of Crossing Lines has been sent to my wonderful beta. So, if you read any of those I haven't forgotten them, this was just a little something to stretch my fingers.**


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